• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

Global poverty going up or down?

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
Is global poverty increasing or decreasing? What do you understand as Christians? Is it going up or down?

The Barna Group has recently completed research on this issue. You can read the research HERE.

Was that information a surprise or not?

Oz
 

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
I thought it was quite obvious that it was going down.

Hopefully in my lifetime absolute poverty will be ended.
What criteria are you using to determine that it 'was quite obvious' that global poverty was going down?

As for absolute poverty in your lifetime, I cannot even assess as I don't know your age. But I think we'll be whistling in the wind to see it end in the next 50-100 years. Why? In my estimate, we need worldviews where everyone cares for one another, is a good Samaritan, and loves the other as one loves the self - which is the Christian worldview.

How do you think other worldviews would respond to what I've just written?

Oxfam stated in January 2013:
Annual income of richest 100 people enough to end global poverty four times over

“We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true.”

Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director, Oxfam International
Published: 19 January 2013

Leaders must aim to bring down global inequality at least to 1990 levels


An explosion in extreme wealth and income is exacerbating inequality and hindering the world’s ability to tackle poverty, Oxfam warned today in a briefing published ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.
The $240 billion net income in 2012 of the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to make extreme poverty history four times over, according Oxfam’s report ‘The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all.’ It is calling on world leaders to curb today’s income extremes and commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels.

The richest one per cent has increased its income by 60 per cent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process.
Oz
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

Paradoxum

Liberty, Equality, Solidarity!
Sep 16, 2011
10,712
654
✟35,688.00
Gender
Female
Faith
Humanist
Marital Status
Private
Politics
UK-Liberal-Democrats
What criteria are you using to determine that it 'was quite obvious' that global poverty was going down?

I don't know, it's just the impression I got from what I understood about countries improving around the world.


Maybe it didn't come up when you saw my post, but I'm 23.

How do you think other worldviews would respond to what I've just written?

Well I agree we should probably care more for others, but it isn't a Christian thing. It's just a morality thing.

I'd say that the way government run themselves is also important. It isn't just about giving money.


I don't disagree. Income inequality should be decreased globally.
 
Upvote 0

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
Paradoxum,

Here's a grab from Stanley Grenz's, The Moral Quest, in which he shows how a moral foundation, based on the Christian worldview, has strong implications for all of society.

Your culture in the UK and mine here in Australia have moral foundations (even though weak in many areas) that are based in a Christian worldview and its perspective on God, human beings, law & order, and how to change human nature. We have a Christian legacy that is fading, but I'd rather live here in Brisbane than in the Central African Republic, Syria, India, Cambodia or the Sudan because of the different worldviews and ethics practiced there.

Worldviews have their consequences. I've seen that after travelling the world and living in the USA & Canada as well. But I'm in my 60s.

Caring more for others is a VERY Christian perspective. Here are a few verses to reinforce this:

Caring For Others

Philippians 2:4 ESV

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Ephesians 4:32 ESV

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
John 13:34-35 ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
1 John 3:17-18 ESV

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Proverbs 21:13 ESV

Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.
1 Timothy 5:8 ESV

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Galatians 6:9-10 ESV

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Matthew 25:40 ESV

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Proverbs 28:27 ESV

Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.
1 Thessalonians 5:11

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
Proverbs 19:17 ESV

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.

I've taken this summary from: '30 Bible verses about Caring for Others'.

With the selfishness in our cultures, the will to accumulate, and the desire for MORE, I can't see an increase in income equality and total elimination of poverty without a change in the sinful, greedy, human hearts of people around the world.

I know only one who can change that heart. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of the world.

Sincerely, Oz


 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

Paradoxum

Liberty, Equality, Solidarity!
Sep 16, 2011
10,712
654
✟35,688.00
Gender
Female
Faith
Humanist
Marital Status
Private
Politics
UK-Liberal-Democrats
Paradoxum,

Here's a grab from Stanley Grenz's, The Moral Quest, in which he shows how a moral foundation, based on the Christian worldview, has strong implications for all of society.

Good for him, But I can't be bothered to read all that.


It's good that they are becoming less religious. You can be good without God, and religion mostly tends to make people worse. Religious people are more likely to violate the liberty and rights of others.

I agree that Islamic countries tend to be worse though.

With the selfishness in our cultures, the will to accumulate, and the desire for MORE, I can't see an increase in income equality and total elimination of poverty without a change in the sinful, greedy, human hearts of people around the world.

I agree that the Bible says some nice things, or very good things.

I know only one who can change that heart. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of the world.

I don't believe in God. I do believe in making the world a better place though.
 
Upvote 0

OzSpen

Regular Member
Oct 15, 2005
11,553
709
Brisbane, Qld., Australia
Visit site
✟140,373.00
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Private
You are trying that kind of line on the wrong person. I would not be interacting with you, an agnostic (or do you call yourself an atheist?), if it were not for the Lord God, through salvation made possible through my receiving Christ as my Lord, who changed my life from the inside out.

I've spent most of my life counselling rebel sinners who tried to be good without God and they failed miserably. How do I know? They told me day in and day out. They demonstrated in their lives - adults, youth and children - that they cannot be good without God.

I don't know what kind of world you've been mixing in.

Vishal Mangalwadi, an Indian-born person, who has been changed from the inside by Jesus and continues to live in India has exposed your thinking in his recent publication: Mangalwadi, V 2011. The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. He lives in a non-Western country and he KNOWS the difference that Jesus makes from what he does not see in his own country.

I'm interested in why you are displaying this kind of resistance to Christian thinking, but you come onto a definitely Christian forum as a humanist to discuss these issues. Is there some discomfort with your humanism? How would you define your humanism? What are the core values of your worldview?

Oz
 
Upvote 0